


Algidity, the Matchmaker

by sachie



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Professors, Humour, M/M, Unresolved Sexual Tension, also unresolved romantic tension, arthur is grumpy and alfred has a nice butt, in which professor kirkland harbors a massive crush for WU's beloved physics professor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-27
Updated: 2015-04-27
Packaged: 2018-03-25 23:10:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3828388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sachie/pseuds/sachie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's freezing cold and personnel housing for World University's STEM department is shut down for maintenance. Which means Alfred F. Jones, WU's beloved Physics professor, needs a place to stay for the remainder of the winter break—and it just so happens that Arthur Kirkland, Professor of the English: Old Literature and Creative Writing Dept. is the one to stumble across him halfway frozen over in front of Building Two.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Algidity, the Matchmaker

With the library doors firmly closed to shut in the blissful heat filling the building, and the heavy, torn curtains drawn closed to block off the raging terror slamming and covering up every surface available to it, Arthur argues he could not have possibly known he’d be knee deep into the snow as soon as he steps outside. 

It’s true, after all. As soon as he’s opened the door to what had previously been a mildly chilly and harmlessly cloudy day, he finds himself struggling to shut it in a futile attempt to keep the snow out. It doesn’t work and thus spills out on the carpet by his feet, because Winter is a monster awakened at full force for three months starting December, and, well. They’re nearing January with worrying speed.

Behind him, the librarian perks up at the slam of the door. Her eyebrows are drawn together in a wordless question, and Arthur faces her with a supposedly reassuring smile. “All right there?” asks Elizabeta.

“Yes,” he says while he buttons up his trench coat ‘till there’s nothing to button. If he’s planning to get home, might as well do it buckled up against the snow. “Just—snow. You know how it is with winter.” He says. Elizabeta only smiles, and he scratches the back of his neck. “Well, I better get going.”

Ms. Hedevary waves at him absently, returning back to the book on her desk. “Stay warm, Arthur.”

Arthur nods and tugs the door open again, this time prepared as the wind blasts right into his face, rushing through his already unruly hair like a wandering hand. Before stepping out, he calls to the librarian, “Goodbye, Ms. Hedevary,” and stumbles out into the ruthless cold before Elizabeta can nag him for not referring to her by her first name.

The walk to his flat—or, for the time being, World Academy’s offered staff accommodation—is too far, too cold, and Arthur spends his time battling the massive snowflakes hurling towards his face. The trees surrounding the path to his department’s building does nothing to help cover him (or the path in between, for that matter), so Arthur spends his whole walk stomping sourly with his face defiantly half-hidden beneath a handmade scarf and hands shoved deep into the pockets of his coat.

He passes by the first staff building, the one for the Math, Science, and Engineering personnel, which had been closed down for the rest of the Winter Break due to some terrible prank gone wrong, and frankly, Arthur hopes it stays shut. Most of the personnel staying in Building One are the ones Arthur would very much likely smother and accidentally nudge off the University’s top floor. Like, say, Francis, who is technically supposed to be in Building Two a few doors down from his own flat considering he taught in the language department, but thankfully had been moved to One to keep peace in the third floor of Building Two. Or Gilbert, who has, for some godforsaken reason, been hired in Animal Welfare, and had filled Arthur’s office with condom balloons the day Arthur’d been hired.

Anyway.

Arthur hopes Building One stays peaceful and properly vacant until at least the beginning of January, so he can at least spend his lonely holidays peacefully.

Soon, his building comes into view, and Arthur breathes a sight of relief, which fogs in contrast to the cold weather and dissipates around him. It’s small – just a mere three floors tall – but it’s cheaper and conveniently close to the University, which had been established in a near backwoods slash scenic area, a few bus rides from the closest city. As he gets closer to the front of the building, he spots a figure huddled by the porch, legs drawn close to chest and obviously shivering. _Perhaps a student_ , Arthur thinks, and his mind wanders to the spare couch in the lobby, and the few blankets their superintendent had locked away in the communal closet.

Then he gets close enough to see who it is.

…definitely not a student.

“A-Arthur, dude!” Alfred F. Jones, or more formally, Professor Jones, says, all teethy and bright-eyed, but his skin and lips are a fiery red—almost purple—from the cold. It takes Arthur all of his self control to not groan out a “bloody hell” and run for the front door. “Funny, as s-stodgy as you look in that coat, y'might as well me an angel breaking through the snow.” blabbers Alfred, because Alfred is a moron. “Are you an angel? Am I f-finally dead?”

Arthur doesn’t answer. He holds his silence and keeps his eyes glaring set at the front doors as he makes his way up the snowed concrete steps.

“E-eh, those eyebrows are still as bushy as ever, probably not.” Alfred continues, trembling beneath layers of clothes, all wet. When Arthur glances at him with a nasty glare, he beams in return in a totally-not-adorable way. “Still r-really prickly as ever, I see.”

Arthur stubbornly decides he doesn’t care as another shiver runs through Massive Moron, and pulls out his keys from his coat pocket. “Hey, man, can I s-stay with you for a night or so? Our building is c-closed.”

“No.” He says, and the keys, still in his hold but fallen towards gravity, jingle its disagreement.

Alfred whines. Memories of Alistair’s stupidly endearing dog, a little Norwich Terrier that really doesn’t look a fit companion to a big, gruff guy like his brother, passes by Arthur as Alfred gives him that puppy-eyed look that really feels all too effective for a guy at Jones’ age. “Come on! My ball’s g-gonna freeze out here!”

“Discard it in the bin by the back when it falls off,” Arthur deadpans, and twists the key in its lock.

The wind picks up, swinging at their direction, and Alfred gives another desperate sound, ice-cold arms clinging firmly onto Arthur’s leg. With all the irritation in the world summoned into one look, Arthur glares at him and attempts to shake him off, but Alfred is difficult to scare away when he puts his mind onto something. “W-what if I d-die?”

“Do it behind the tree over there, where your corpse won’t scare anyone.” says the Brit. After a pause, he adds, “On second thought, do it near the rosebush. Maybe you’ll make a great fertilizer, Mr. Jones.”

“Artieeee,” Alfred pleads. In one swift motion, Arthur pulls the door open and strides into the blissfully dry building. But before he could slam it into Alfred’s face, he finds a whole leg caught between the door and the doorframe. It doesn’t take a second before Arthur’s stomping at the sopping wet obstacle keeping the door from closing. “I just need—” a wiggle past the door, and suddenly there’s half a body. Arthur pushes harder with considerable vigor. “—ow! I just need waaarmth.”

“Could’ve let you in, except for the part when the fart balloons happened.” Arthur huffs between battling the door. He uses the heel of his hand to push Alfred’s persisting face back and away from the warmth, but Alfred slips through like a newborn baby. It’s quite the disturbing thought. “Or the part where you brainwashed my whole class. And the dicks on the board. Need I list more?”

“That was ages ago!” Alfred argues, with a mere limb out in the cold.

“Three weeks ago!” Arthur says, bristling.

But it isn’t too long after that Alfred manages to slip past the door, nor does he waste a moment before he’s borderline molesting the heater, and so Arthur grumps and boots the front door shut.

Walking in what he hopes is hushed agility, Arthur begins towards the staircase, hoping Alfred is too busy harassing the radiator. Of course, because Arthur Kirkland is quite possibly what he considers the unluckiest man in the whole of World University’s campus and also the whole existing universe, Alfred is following right behind him the moment he tries to make sure that Alfred isn’t aware of his disappearance. It takes all of Arthur’s restraint not to shriek at the unexpected, looming figure on his back.

Then the weight of a sopping wet arm encircles his shoulders and tows him towards a less sodden bomber jacket.

“Oh, warm,” says Alfred, pleasantly, pressing his cheek into Arthur’s hair like he does it every fucking day.

Arthur splutters and turns a bright shade of red once he manages to reconnect his brain cells, hands fumbling midair to push the cold and damp body away from him, but it’s no use. The arm locked behind his neck is tight and vice like, and as soon as he manages to raise his face away from the mess of damp coat, he wheezes, “What—”

There’s a hand ruffling through his hair, then the arms are out of his way. Arthur stands speechlessly with the most bewildered expression and Alfred peeks down at him with a smug curl of his lips, slapping a hand on Arthur’s back with enough force to severe a trachea, before manhandling him to face the staircase. “Token of gratitude.” he says in a way of explanation.

“I didn’t _want_ your bloody token of—”

“So! Where’s your apartment?” The bastard asks, “Should I say flat? Where’s your flat, Artie fartie?”

A hand twitch. “Oh, god,” grunts Arthur, " _no_."

“What ‘no’?”

“Hell no, you aren’t going to my flat, that’s what.” Arthur scowls over his shoulder.

Alfred, the wet dog of a jackass, only smiles widely and wiggles his eyebrows. “Hells _yeah_ , you mean. C'mon, it’s like, Christmas, and you’re still being all lonely by the dorms.”

“There’s a bloody couch in the common room—” Arthur starts, but his feet are already stumbling to catch up to Alfred’s pace. “And a TV, and perhaps, if you’re lucky, a clean, unwanked blanket on it—Alfred!”

“You’re better entertainment than bad TV,” says Alfred, because Alfred is a mind-numbingly sweet dimwit.

Arthur scowls but fails to come up with an intelligent retort; instead he opts to grumbling and dragging his foot up the two flights of stairs to his floor. Alfred follows closely with heavier, soppier footsteps, eyes set on the shitty flickering lights of the staircase. Their ascent is oddly silent, but Arthur does not complain, only pulls open the door to the second floor and trudges down the hall to his flat and opens his unit’s door. He finds himself grateful that all of his colleagues had gone home for the break; if anyone were to see him struggling to open his door with Alfred leaning on the wall beside him with absolutely no sense of personal space, they’d definitely get the wrong idea.

“So,” Alfred begins once Arthur manages to nudge open the door. Despite the glare shot at him that resolutely says ‘talk to me and I will ruin you’, he cheerfully continues, “Got anything in mind, d'ya? TV? Monopoly?”

The shoes are toed off and pushed underneath the shoe rack. “How about this,” Arthur says slowly, as Alfred unabashedly watches him shrug off his coat. He’s still watching when Arthur pulls off his tie with enough aggression to leave a whipping noise, pupils even dilating, and Arthur thinks, Jesus fucking _Christ_. He knows he should have left this attractive swine to rot over the rose bushes. “We play this game where we both pretend you do not exist.”

A ferocious pout settles onto Jones’ features, and the only thing Arthur can think of is: absolutely goddamn _unfair_. “That’s no fun, though.” says Alfred, following him further into the flat, leaving a trail of melting snow and a bit of mud behind him. Arthur takes a brief moment to mourn for the cleanliness of his floor. “Have you got anything entertaining?”

“Books.”

Alfred laughs, the swine. “Nerd,” he even has the nerve to accuse.

“Physics professors have no _right_ ,” says Arthur with enough feel that Alfred breaks out into a bigger, shit-eating grin. “Besides, you rage over your.. your—” a wave of a hand “—whatever contraption you find pleasure in fondling. Picture games, or whatever. Fucking nerd.”

Whatever he’s said, seems to make Alfred laugh even further, so Arthur clamps his mouth shut, eyes squinted at the shitbag’s inelegantly chortling, thrown back face with a force of a millennium’s stack of irritation. Arthur curses all cocky American professors, gives an indignant huff, and spins on his heels towards his closet to rummage for home clothes.

While he’s pulling out sweatpants from beneath his neatly folded pile of trousers and house pants, Alfred pipes up, “Nice apartment, dude.”

“Thank you,” grunts Arthur, because even if he does not want to reply, he’s a bloody gentleman.

“Tidy, too. Y'should see mine, man, one big mess.” Alfred says. Figures. Even his desk is one pile of mess, with students’ papers scattered all over and pictures of him and his family and sometimes the occasional coworker thumbtacked to the walls in no particular order or pattern. It sort of bugs Arthur whenever he passes by the Math, Science, and Engineering Department, with four separate paper files usually on top of his desk and three more on the carpeted floor by his feet—but then he gets distracted over the three photographs of them by one corner, one that Francis had taken during the staff Halloween party. Alfred had had an arm hooked snugly around him and Arthur had been drunk enough to be leaning comfortably into the warmth, both of them smiling brightly, and it looks sweet enough to send Arthur into a spiral of embarrassment and trigger a myriad of flustered insults.

Anyway.

With a shirt and sweatpants in hand, and having retrieved a fresh set of boxers along with it, he turns on his heels with the mind to change in the bathroom.

Instead he finds Alfred tugging his very tight, very revealing shirt over his fucking tanned, muscular chest, over his broad shoulders, then over his mess of blond hair, coat already discarded on one of his wooden seats.

Arthur almost curses. “What do you think you’re _doing_?” he hisses instead, but Alfred doesn't seem to hear, and also doesn't stop with just the shirt.

Soon Alfred’s unbuttoning and unzippering his jeans, wriggling them over his prominent backside (clad in wet, skin tight underwear—how does he even get his underwear wet?) in one fluid motion. It falls over his firm, tanned thighs, landing on a pile of wet-and-muddy atop his sneakers, which he also kicks off to the side. At least he’s considerate enough to leave them by the door.

Arthur makes a halfway-inhuman noise when Alfred finally regards his poor, spluttering form, and asks, just a tad bit too late: “Hey, you don’t mind me ripping my clothes off in your apartment, d'ya?”

It takes Arthur ten whole seconds of bewildered, and definitely offended gaping before he hurls the sweatpants at Alfred’s face. 

— 

“Hey, can I use your shower?” Alfred asks, all hopeful and disgustingly bright-eyed, and Arthur scowls at him with the ferocity of a displeased five year old. 

— 

Arthur doesn't even spare the messy-haired, baby-blues bastard one glance when he steps out of the shower smelling just like Arthur. He doesn’t even remark when Alfred crawls onto his fucking bed and hogs his duvets like he’s familiar with the place. All Arthur does is sniff indignantly and grab the towel that Alfred had stolen from his storage off his neck before heading for the bathroom himself, totally ignoring how fitting Alfred looks while cuddled beneath the covers he uses everyday, wearing his sweatpants, face first into the pillows he wakes to every morning.

It takes a lot of his self control to not think about how attractive Professor Alfred F. Jones is. It takes _all_ of his self control, however, not to think about how much he’d like to push him against the pillows and rim him till he is writhing against his bed, or, perhaps, about how much he’d like to ride him until Alfred is yelling his release at the walls, his tanned thighs strained and trembling, head thrown against the headboard just enough that Arthur could nose the span of his neck, bite along the skin of his collar, feel beneath his fingertips the warm come that would drip out of him and down Alfred’s length—

Fuck, Arthur thinks numbly, already beneath the beat of the shower. _Fuck_. 

— 

This particular situation, Arthur very quickly learns, is exceptionally unconventional. And also, really inconvenient (understatement).

Arthur is all too painfully aware how excruciatingly attractive Alfred F. Jones is. He comes off as the typical All American Boy with his blond hair and baby blues and stupid crooked grins, complete with a package of a nice body figure and at least three significantly different American accents stored inside of him. As half of the campus is with Professor Jones, Professor Kirkland of the English: Creative Writing and Old Literature Department also harbors an embarrassingly enormous crush (at the very least, lust) for him, enough for Arthur to establish incalculable plans in methods on how to destruct all attraction budding inside of him for when, for some godforsaken reason, he gets stuck into situations like this.

Of course, because Alfred is a jackass with alien handsomeness, none of it works.

No, especially not when he’s sprawled face down across Arthur’s bed, glasses askew and one of Arthur’s old books in hand, wearing Arthur’s clothes that seems to miss his size by just an extra inch or so.

Arthur recalculates his methods and comes to the conclusion that there are only two ways for him to resurface out of this situation with his dignity intact and clear of inappropriate erections: one is to kick Alfred out of his flat, which is, frankly, a damned impossible feat (doesn't mean he can’t try, though) and another is to let him stay and keep from being within a five feet radius of him before Arthur ends up doing something he would deeply regret.

So, of course, as soon as Arthur enforces Plan Two and turns on his heels to go work on grading his student’s papers for the winter break—

Alfred calls at him. “Hey, Artie,” he says, with a leg curled around a duvet and his sight set above the rim of his glasses in a crushingly attractive way that makes Arthur pause and run an open palm over his face. “Wanna do somethin’?”

“No,” says Arthur. “Go away. I’ll put your clothes in the wash so I could kick your arse back out sooner.”

Any sort of attempts at passive aggressively leading Alfred out of the door doesn't seem to have any lasting (or just _any_ ) affects for that matter, because Alfred just says, “You seriously don’t have entertainment? No TV? Board games?”

“No,” says Arthur, again.

Alfred tilts his head and frowns contemplatively, his eyes still focused on Arthur. The intensity of his looks pulls a flush of warmth to Arthur’s cheeks, who stands there with his back by the door of his bathroom with his hair probably sticking in all sorts of directions and dripping over his newly changed tee.

“Hey,” Alfred mutters, jolts him out of his self-calculating reverie, and pats the bed beside him invitingly. Thick eyebrows scrunch up in unadulterated bewilderment as his eyes follow the path of Alfred’s hands. “C'mere.”

“What,” splutters Arthur, stupidly.

“The bed,” says Alfred, with all the humour in the world. “Come, sit.”

It takes Arthur two whole pregnant pauses to come to a conclusion that Professor Jones is asking him to come sit on his _own bloody bed_ , all casually curled up, like—like some ridiculous, absolutely sinful figure on the wait to be thoroughly ravaged, that Arthur falters idiotically from the doorway, glaring with what he could muster like it offers some sort of wordless defiance to the gods.

And because he fails to think up some well put together words to tell Alfred that he’s not some kind of fucking dog to tell to come sit, Arthur manages to blurt out something along the lines of “that's my bed you twit” and “papers need grading” and “entertain yourself” before taking one look at Alfred's patient, sweet, smiling expression, and his stupid, insistent hand still placed at the space beside him. Arthur crinkles his nose in a small act of defiance (and a huge one of self-preservation, because who knows how badly he'll be able to hold back doing enormously stupid things if he concurs), and stomps over to retrieve the neatly piled essays atop his work desk, and waves them at Alfred before crabbily making his way to the kitchen to be left alone.

There is, of course, a bark of laughter coming from his bedroom, and some sort of quiet comment from Alfred calling Arthur adorable that Arthur chooses to think is something either entirely satirical or a figment of his own imagination ridiculing him. Nevertheless, he is left alone to grade at least a fourth of the papers on his desk before Alfred interrupts by charging into the kitchen, declaring he is in need of food.

“Get your own bloody food,” says Arthur, and finds himself a little less than five minutes later rummaging through his cabinets in search for food while Alfred peers over his shoulder. 

“That's all you _have_?” Alfred asks, tone incredulous, after thoroughly inspecting all of his flat's possible storage areas. “Dude, I probably have, like, everything you have multiplied by ten!” continues Alfred, as he moves away from Arthur to re-inspect the fridge for the third time, and Arthur curses all the existing cells within his body for even just noticing the warmth lost from his back. He reaches out and grabs the bagged flour from the shelves hovering over his kitchen counter, and forces all sense of oblivion into himself as he notices Alfred staring at his midriff, over the refrigerator's door. Alfred is a wankstain, Arthur decides, and grips the bag of sugar crustily until a part of it raptures beneath the press of his finger. 

As Alfred sprawls on the chair positioned opposite of where Arthur usually spends his dinners alone, hand holding a half-eaten granola bar that he'd taken from the depths of Arthur's cupboards and a foot propped up on top of the dinner table (“If you don't get that off my table in approximately five seconds, you'll be walking around with one less foot, Jones.”), Arthur finds himself grudgingly gliding around the kitchen, his hands dirtied with clumps of watered flour. This time, instead of making sure his food is at the very least edible, Arthur makes sure that his scones resemble charcoal before dumping the scone-filled plate unceremoniously in front of the Lord of Jackasses, watching with a rush of smugness as colour drained from Alfred's features. 

Later on, cheeks puffed out with a mouth full of crisp, burnt pastries, and with a look of held back nausea, Alfred would croak out, “Tastes great, Artie,” and it would take Arthur a moment – locked away in the bathroom with his fists white against the sink – to calm down the affection bursting out of his chest.

**Author's Note:**

> whoa.. what's tHIS?? a wild au has appeared?!!? haha, this upload is inspired by arthur's lil birthday (ignore the fact that it's three days late), so happy birthday to the world's most ridiculous(ly endearing and adorable and cutejfslkhs) fictional character! a little note: there is no such thing as personnel housing, and i have minimum knowledge on how universities and their staff are like. this fic is erected purely for the humour and heavy ust. also, there's a significant lack of beta-reading.
> 
> nevertheless, i hope you enjoyed your read! the next part will be uploaded soon.


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